NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Microsoft expands low-cost Windows to Mexico, by By Ina Fried

Microsoft said Tuesday that it is expanding its Windows XP Starter Edition to include Mexico, with plans to eventually offer the low-cost operating system throughout Latin America. The software maker said that the Spanish-language Windows XP Starter Edition will be made available on new PCs starting immediately in Mexico and Argentina, with a goal of offering the OS throughout Latin America in the coming months. XP Starter Edition is similar to other flavors of Windows XP...

Source

CNET News.com

India’s Renaissance: The $100 computer is key to India’s tech fortunes, by Michael Kanellos

One of the critical ingredients for the $100 computer is probably in your garage. In about three months, a little-known company called Novatium plans to offer a stripped-down home computer for about $70 or $75. That is about half the price of the standard thin clients of this kind now sold in India, made possible in part by some novel engineering choices. Adding a monitor doubles the price to $150, but the company will offer used displays to keep the cost down...

Source

CNET News.com

Spreading into rural India, by Nelson Vinod Moses

BPOs are moving to villages Kizhanur is like any other village in Tamil Nadu?s Thiruvallur district, surrounded by paddy fields and grazing cows. But look closely at No:1 Sivan Koil street which is awash with a new phenomenon ? a business process outsourcing (BPO) version of ITC?s e-choupal. Chida Soft is a village BPO, doing coding on legal paper for an US client. It is run by entrepreneur Sharmila , 25, who supervises the Kizhanur franchisee of Lason India, ...

Source

Business Standard

Booming cell phone sector rare Africa success story, by Rebecca Harrison

Ask the head of leading African mobile phone operator Vodacom why last year’s profits were so huge, and he points to the long lines of South Africans snaking from the company’s flagship store in Johannesburg. Just look at all these people signing up for phones, marvels Alan Knott-Craig. They can’t seem to get enough of them and these are ordinary folk, not white executives. Vodacom and its main rivals MTN and Celtel -- now part of Kuwait...

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Reuters UK

Ground reality, by Prerna Raturi And Gouri Shukla

Lessons that companies have picked up from the bottom of the pyramid Management thinker C K Prahalad strongly believes that focusing on the poor represents an opportunity rather than a problem. In India, companies that subscribe to this view, from ITC to HLL, have been constantly trying to cater to rural India, spread across 6,27,000 villages, which is home to 70 per cent of India?s population. What?s more, 90 per cent of the rural population is concentrated in villages w...

Source

Business Standard

Solar Stove to the Rescue

The apparatus which comes as a set comprising an aluminium funnel, a tripod stand, a pot and safety device against reflection of sun rays, has been tested with different kinds of raw foods which were successfully cooked into edible meals. This stove can prepare all manner of food including beans, yam, infact all staple foods consumed in Nigeria can be cooked with this appliance, says Sogunro, adding you can even make eba with it if the required amount of garri and normal quanti...

Source

This Day (Lagos)

Shea butter boosts W. Africa business, by Kwaku Sakyi-Addo

The shea nut trees grow easily in the savannah belt that separates the Sahara desert from the verdant, tropical coast of West Africa. They only start to bear fruit after 20 years, reach maturity after 45, but can go on producing for two centuries. Several countries in the region export 60,000 to 80,000 metric tonnes of shea nuts each year, but the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization says that could increase ten fold. Shea nuts could be big business for West ...

Source

Reuters

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Ifugao micro-hydro projects to be replicated in Ecija farming towns, by Desiree Caluza

This province’s community-led micro-hydro power projects will be replicated in Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya to energize farming communities there. The establishment of the micro-hydro plants in the two provinces will provide electricity to the farming villages of Minuli and Capintalan in Carranglan, Nueva Ecija, and some villages in Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya, said Shubert Ciencia, spokesperson of the Rice Watch and Action Network of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement here...

Source

Philippine Daily Inquirer